Channing Tatum’s ‘Gambit’ Removed From Release Schedule
The good news about Disney’s acquisition of Fox, for a Marvel fan anyway, is the possibility that eventually the X-Men will join Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe after almost 20 years off in their own movie franchise. The bad news about Disney’s acquisition of Fox, for an X-Men movie fan anyway, is the very strong possibility that once Dark Phoenix is released, you will never see the Fox versions of the X-Men characters (except maybe Deadpool) ever again.
That includes the Fox X-Men characters that never made it to the screen but were in development. For years, Channing Tatum has been attached to a movie where he would play the X-Men‘s beloved thief-turned-hero, Gambit. In 2015, Tatum even appeared at Fox’s San Diego Comic-Con panel, where he posed with Hugh Jackman, Stan Lee, and the rest of the movie X-Men family.
Despite Tatum’s obvious enthusiasm, the film has never come together. Years of delays ensued as numerous directors like Doug Liman and Gore Verbinski joined and left the project. The last we heard, any development on the film was on hold pending Disney’s acquisition of Fox. But now that the acquisition is complete, Disney has condensed the upcoming Fox slate into their own lineup of movies, and their new release calendar included this ominous line:
GAMBIT (FOX) previously dated on 3/13/20 is removed from schedule
That doesn’t necessarily mean the film is dead. It just means it’s not happening in March of 2020, and Disney didn’t give it a specific release date at a later time. In this case, the fact that the movie never got off the drawing board may be to its benefit. Disney is almost certainly not going to want to continue Fox’s X-Men universe in any way (again, except for Deadpool, which they’d be dopes not to carry forward). Since Channing Tatum never appeared as Gambit onscreen, he can be the MCU’s Gambt at some point down the line. And maybe he could even get his own movie at some point down the line too. But the key phrase there is “down the line.” Given how carefully Marvel plans their calendar, and how far in advance as well, that won’t happen any time soon.
But maybe some day? As a wise man named Gambit once said “If I’ve learned anyt’ing about life wit de X-Men ... it’s dat anyt’ing is possible”
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